Photography is not about gear. It is about art, expressions, emotion, colour. About the end product, not about what you use to get there.

Right. But it does start with gear. I thought, therefore, that you might be interested in what lenses I used for what shoots. I get asked this rather a lot. So I did some data mining of my shoots of the last few years.

Michael's Lenses

EVENTS:

First I picked some recent event shoots: “grip and grins”. The lenses I uses were, out of a total of thousands of images:

Canon 1D Mark IV (1.3 crop factor):

42% – 24-70 f/2.8 (equiv. 30-90) (by shoots, this is number 2)

39% – 70-200 f/2.8 (equiv. 90-260) (by shoots, this is number 1)

17% – 16-35 f/2.8 (equiv. 20-45)

1% – 35mm f/1.4 (equiv. 45)

1% – 50mm f/1.4 (equiv. 65)

Canon 1Ds Mark III (full frame)

51% – 16-35 f/2.8

33% – 24-70 f/2.8

12% – 35mm f/1.4

2% – 70-200 f/2.8

1% – 50mm f/1.4

That is interesting. On the 1Ds, I use the 35mm f/1.4 lens in too few shoots (a lovely lens!).

GENERAL:

Now the total, all types of shoots, out of a total of tens of thousands of images::

Canon 1D Mark IV (1.3 crop factor):

49% – 24-70 f/2.8 (equiv. 30-90)

25% – 16-35 f/2.8 (equiv. 20-45)

19% – 70-200 f/2.8 (equiv. 90-260)

3% – 35mm f/1.4 (equiv. 45)

2% – 50mm f/1.4 (equiv. 65)

2% – 100mm macro

Canon 1Ds Mark III (full frame)

33% – 24-70 f/2.8

27% – 16-35 f/2.8

19% – 70-200 f/2.8

13% – 35mm f/1.4

5% – 50mm f/1.4

3% – 100mm macro

One surprise here is how often I use a specialty lens like the macro. The real surprising thing is how often I use the 24-70, on both cameras.

Here is another breakdown: What focal length do I use in event shoots. More data mining from Lightroom gives me this (out of aroud 2,000 shots in a number of event shoots):

Michael's event focal lengths

As you see, peaks at 35mm for the full frame and at 70-200mm for the 1.3 crop camera.

So for an event, here are a few suggested combos.

Large room: A good safe “vanilla” combo, for larger rooms:

1Ds with 24-70

1D with 70-200

Smaller Room: Another safe combo, good for wider shots, e.g. in smaller rooms:

1Ds with 16-35

1D with 24-70

Creative: A slightly riskier combo, great for both wide effects and long shots (and covering a super-wide range, but maybe a bit riskier because the range between “real” 35-90 is missing):

1Ds with 16-35

1D with 70-200

Dark: Finally, a combo for darker rooms:

1Ds with 35 f/1.4 prime

1D with 70-200 – or with 50mm f/1.4!

Of course you can also just pick what you have. I mentioned a friend and student who recently showed me a wedding he had shot entirely with a 35mm (equivalent) lens. You do not need to obsess too much.

That said, it is fun to use the tools in the best possible way. And I strongly recommend that you also make checklists.

I was amused to see Leica announce recently that they would not be issuing any micro four-thirds lenses. In a recent Popsci blog, Leica’s VP marketing is quoted as saying:

“One reason why we’ve decided not to move into Micro Four Thirds is that we have looked at the sensor size and realized that it cannot produce the image quality that we need. Therefore we decided to stick with the full format in addition to APS-C. It’s all about the ratios”

So let’s see what a real micro four thirds Panasonic, my new GF-1 with fixed 20mm lens, can do against the top of the line Canon, the 1Ds Mark III with a prime 50mm lens. Crazy comparison, eh? Who’d be crazy enough to shoot the same object with a highest-end SLR versus a point and shoot?

Me.

I just shot my most patient model in the studio, lit by a couple of Bowens strobes.

Both cameras set to manual, 100 ISO, f/9, 1/125th second (as measured with the light meter). One shot focus, focus point on the eye.

1Ds Mark III: 50mm f/1.4 lens on this full-frame 23 Mpixel camera

The 12 Mpixel GF1 was fitted with a 20mm f/1.7 lens. Because the sensor is four times smaller than a negative, this is equivalent to 40mm “real” length.

So the shots:

Full shot, Canon:

Canon 1Ds Mark III, 50mm f/1.4 lens

Full shot: Panasonic:

Panasonic GF1, 20mm f/1.7 lens

Detail, Canon:

Canon 1Ds Mark III, 50mm f/1.4 lens (detail)

Detail, Panasonic:

Panasonic GF1, 20mm f/1.7 lens (detail)

In all cases, click to see a larger picture.

These were RAW images that have been read into Lightroom and edited slightly for white balance and exposure. No sharpening or noise reduction was done.

What does this show me? Yes, I suppose at higher ISOs I’ll see more of a difference, but at these low ISO settings, any megapixel count over ten is “enough”, and the difference in the case of such a controlled shot is minimal.

Certainly, this does not in my opinion warrant the comments by Leica.

While I am not about to hang up my DSLRs, I am impressed by the small camera’s ability to produce professional work.

So to Uncle Fred (and you are not Uncle Fred, or you would not be reading this):

It’s not about the equipment;

It’s about the picture.

There! Let’s start thinking more about the image than about how we make it.

As you will see, on this blog I teach daily – a teaching post every single day. Enjoy, and search back through the past year – many useful tips here from a working photographer and teacher to everyone who is interested!

Few posts of mine come without a snap or two, so here are a couple from yesterday’s shoot – the Hon. Minister Harinder Takhar MPP, a truly charming man:

The Honourable Minister Harinder Takhar, MPP

I used three lenses: one long (70-200 on the 1D Mark IV) and two wide (24-70 and later 16-35 on the 1Ds Mark III).

They don’t do anything more than a Digital Rebel. But they do do it better sometimes, and that is important when you shoot for a living. They are more waterproof and more shockproof and shoot faster. And they have several other neat functions that can really matter.

Look at this shot here, from a commercial shoot I just did:

Entertainment Central, Oakville

No idea what happened to the bottom right corner: bad sector on the disk, perhaps?

That is why the 1-series cameras, like my 1D Mark IV and my 1Ds Mark III, can write to two memory cards at once. I always do this. Sometimes the same format to both, sometimes large RAW to one and small RAW or even JPG to the other. That way I still have one when the other one has a problem.

If you do not have a 1-series or similar camera that can write to two cards, what do you do?